TWO PODCASTS TO CHECK OUT

First, I just wanted to remind everyone to check out The Triple Feature tonight at 9:00 PM CST. Not sure what we’re going to talk about, although I know that Joe tweeted about seeing The Fantastic Mr. Fox over the weekend and I’m very eager to hear what he has to say about it.

Cami and I had a date night on Saturday and we saw Robert Zemeckis’s A Christmas Carol, so I plan to spend a little time talking about that. For the Cliff’s Notes version of my review, I can say that the motion capture animation that Zemeckis is advocating continues to advance, but I don’t much see the point of it.

I mean, it’s impressive that they can use the technology to allow Jim Carrey to play 8 different roles (like some kind of digital Eddie Murphy), but the film boats an amazing cast. Between Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, Cary Elwes and Robin Write Penn I couldn’t help but think that I wanted to see the live-action version of this movie more.

I think this problem is compounded by the fact that the animators stay a little too close to the likeness of the flesh-and-blood actors and don’t push them far enough into caricature. Obviously Scrooge is an exaggeration of a contorted human face and the fact that you can still see Carrey’s mannerisms through the “digital makeup” is kind of revolutionary.

But it seems like they didn’t even bother to try and hide Oldman as Cratchit, Firth as Scrooge’s nephew Fred or Hoskins as Mr. Fezziwig. Granted, Oldman’s Cratchit is about two feet shorter than the actor in real life. But the faces are almost exactly the same. What’s the point?

At least in Beowulf, Zemeckis went to the effort of bulking up and tanning the other wise chubby and pasty Ray Winstone.

I wanted to point your attention to an interview I did with Andrew McDonald over at New-Gen that was posted over there this morning. It’s an audio recording and it’s a little over a half hour long, but I’m really pleased with how it turned out. If you have the time to listen to it, I think there are some particular insights that you will enjoy.

Andrew asked some very intelligent questions and I thought the conversation flowed naturally. We got beyond the boiler plate about Theater Hopper and my history with the comic and wandered into some really interesting territory regarding digital media, distribution models and webcomics in general. I strongly encourage you to check it out. It will be well worth your time.